Silver Linings
by rurouni
Summary: Kaoru reflects on the legacy her father left behind. New edition, final chapter modified.
1. A Kamiya Lives On

**Silver Linings**

**Chapter One: A Kamiya Lives On **

**Disclaimer**: Rurouni Kenshin and its characters don't belong to me...

**Author's Note** (1): It's my second RK fic...and quite short as well...More of character sketches rather than a real story...but I like doing character sketches for RK because the characters are so human, so real. Hope you'll like this one...thank you to those who reviewed my first fic...this goes out to you!

**Author's Note** (2): Edited in August 2009, mainly to correct formatting and tweak (i.e. improve) writing style.

Kamiya Kaoru was in the dojo – her family's dojo, around which her life had centred ever since she could remember. Ghosts of memories floated around her, and she could almost, almost hear the sounds of feet slapping against the wooden floors, of laboured breathing, of bokken striking bokken.

Now, however, all that was left of her family was just Kamiya Kaoru. Just her. Sole descendent of the Kamiya family, sole inheritor of the Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu. All alone.

Her fingers trembled slightly as she lifted the lid of the beautiful wooden box. Its polished wood was smooth to the touch, and shone as it caught the morning light. Inside, wrapped carefully in scarlet silk was her father's sword. A _katana_. Sleek, shiny, beautiful, but all too deadly. It was a work of art, but how many had been slain on its silvery edge? How many had their blood stain its metal blade? Beautiful, yet deadly.

Strangely similar to Kaoru herself. Fiercely determined, Kamiya Kaoru grew to have the skills to complement her straightforward nature. The _katana _was steel-strong, yet flexible. Reminiscent of her strength of character that enabled her to adapt, fight on, and survive.

The demise of the Kamiya dojo's reputation, the move to teach at other dojo's instead, the eking out of a miserable existence. But it was an existence – she was living, and her family was dead. That, in itself, painted her greatest responsibility: to carry on the beliefs and aspirations of the Kamiya family, expressed in kendo – the Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu. She was living, and while she was living, she would do it.

Her father's _katana _was a representative of the days gone by, of a past she did not want to bring up again. But felt she had to.

She had to first exorcise this ghost from the past before she could confront the living ghost in the form of this "Battousai", who still struck fear into the hearts of the townsfolk.

_Even though it _is _the Meiji Era. Che._

She gripped the She had to revisit her father, the man her father had been, had become. She had to know. Know why he had chosen to save lives, not kill. Then, she would be able to do what was expected of her. To be a rightful inheritor of the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu. The key lay in the old, discarded, yet treasured, sword.


	2. A Sword Without A Sheath

**Silver Linings  
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**Chapter Two: A Sword Without A Sheath **

A sword without a sheath is a dangerous one, readied for its deathly mission. At the same time, a sword without a sheath was also somewhat out of place – like a wanderer without a home.

Himura Kenshin was one such sword. He was a vagabond, a wanderer, a rurouni. His sword was sheathed by his side, in blatant defiance of the laws of the new era, yet he himself wandered aimlessly.

He had not always been like this. He used to have a home, a woman to come home to, even in the messy, bloody days of the Bakamatsu. She had steadied him, loved him, cared for him, been there for him in a way no other had been since the pretty faces, now faded in memory, had taken care of a little red-headed boy in the caravan. But she was gone. Died at his very hand.

He had been known as Battousai, the feared hitokiri of the Bakamatsu era, where all was chaos, and chaos was normality. That was then. He was not Battousai now.

Himura Kenshin had sword never to kill again, and as the scabbard tapped lightly against his side as he walked, he observed the bustling surroundings that indicated peace and coming prosperity in the new age. People here, people there, busying themselves with tradecraft and trade.

People had built the new age, and without people this peaceful era would mean nothing. Thus, the killing had to stop.

And just like the boy of fifteen who had stepped forward for what he believed was right, and fought against his master's will during the era of bloodshed and reform, this man with the cross-shaped scar had made a life-altering decision based on a moral conviction. And hence, the sword that hung by his side was one with a reverse blade. And he wandered, and wandered.

What was he searching for? Redemption? Forgiveness? A home, perhaps?


	3. Mistaken Identity

**Silver Linings**

**Chapter Three: Mistaken Identity **

**Author's Note**: I tried to give an inkling of what both parties were feeling and/or thinking during this first meeting - Mistaken Identity...enjoy!

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Kamiya Kaoru was nervous. She had heard someone approaching, and the sound of footsteps grew closer, increasing the thump-thump-thump that resounded in her own chest.

She was still hidden in the shadows, and her steely resolve showed itself in the tightness of her grip around the bokkun in her hand. She knew what she had to do, and she was prepared and ready – to fight.

Her opponent was the infamous Battousai, and as she closed her eyes and gave herself a last mental pep talk, she knew that regardless of the outcome of the upcoming battle, it was a fight from which she could not walk away.

Himura Kenshin, rurouni, refreshed from a visit to the public bathhouse and pleasantly-full from a meal at one of the street ramen stalls, walked along, blissfully unaware of the threats that someone was uttering against him under her breath. Until that certain someone had jumped out in front of him.

"You're Battousai. Prepare to fight."

Battousai. His dark past. How—how had it caught up to him here? How could she have known? He stared at the bokken in her hands. And why was she trying to fight the Battousai?

"Oro?"

Kaoru sighed as she stared at the man staring back at her and her wooden sword.

Wrong man. This man, so short of stature and so simple in manner and expression, could not possibly be the Battousai.

_Even though he did carry a sword, albeit a reversed-edge sword. Strange, to say the least. But she had long been past caring about a person's past. Everyone has yesterdays he or she wants to forget. Even she. _

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**Replies**: Gypsy-chan: Thanks for reviewing!


	4. Alone Again

**Silver Linings**

**Chapter Four: Alone Again**

Kaoru had persuaded the rurouni to stay, after he had helped save her life. Helped? Perhaps it was more accurate to say that he had done the job by himself. Soon, he had become part of her everyday life, making memories she would treasure for life.

She knelt in the dojo. Alone again. The rurouni – his name was Kenshin – had left her earlier that evening, striding off in a haze of fireflies.

She opened the wooden box, lifted the scarlet cloth, and fingered the blade absent-mindedly.

"_It's something that reminds me of why I live today."_

_Her father's simple answer to little Kaoru's question did little to stifle the curiosity that surrounded the contents of the wooden box that occupied a tiny corner of the room. _

A reminder about the meaning of life. She saw the irony in a blade that had taken numerous lives pointing toward the preciousness of life that the Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu had been founded upon. But as Kaoru sat there that afternoon, she felt that she had come closer to understanding the man she had called "father". Life, death, and legacy. She could imagine the darkness of his days as he fought the demons of his own past, the triumph of valuing life and giving life to those around him (herself included!), and the victory in the legacy he left after his pre-mature death.

She thought she could help him free himself from the past and its guilt and sadness, but she was wrong. His demons were persistent and strong, and intent on chasing him down. She thought she had come close to understanding him, but he remained – he preferred to remain – a mystery.

She looked at the _katana _again, aware that her thoughts had shifted from one man to another. Perhaps not all hope was lost.

_Thank you, Father. _

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**Author's Note (1):** Thanks for reviewing, minna-san! I appreciate it! The last instalment in my very short story... I hope you've enjoyed it.

Author's Note (2): Aug 2009. Completely changed chapter 4 to tie up loose ends of the story, as I felt that the old edition was inadequate, and far too cliched.


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